The future of the Wallum heathland in Brunswick Heads is on the line this week, with Byron Council facing a procedural decision which could see the bulldozers start to roll.
For more than six months, a large and growing group of locals have run a concerted campaign to save the fragile wilderness area from becoming a housing development.
This includes a non-violent direct action in Lennox Head yesterday, in which a group of campaigners dressed as glossy black cockatoos gathered in front of the offices of the developer, the Clarence Property Group.
Clarence Property has planning approval from the Northern Region Planning Panel – which is not part of Council – to build 124 residential lots, three medium density lots, and a series of roads and supporting infrastructure.
But locals say the site is home to multiple threatened species, including the Wallum froglet and the Wallum sedge frog, and that measures proposed by Clarence to protect these species will do little to protect them.
Joined by Aboriginal elders and community members who say the site has deep cultural significance, the campaign is demanding that the land be protected.
The matter is coming back before Council this week for a final sign-off that would allow construction to commence.
The developer is seeking a subdivision works certificate for the first stage of works to begin, with Council staff recommending to councillors that they are legally required to provide a procedural sign-off.
Councillors had already deferred this final step until after the summer break so that they could digest various plans provided by the developer in order to ‘demonstrate compliance’ with their obligations around vegetation management and species protection.
Staff have advised councillors that these plans have been rigorously assessed and that they are obliged to let the development commence as it has already been approved.
‘Should there be unnecessary delays in the finalisation of the Subdivision Works Certificate, the applicant has rights of appeal through the Land Environment Court,’ Council’s legal services team said.
‘Council would need to finance any defence and costs associated with it in terms of an appeal if it eventuated.’
But those fighting to protect the site say Council has an obligation to protect Wallum and to represent community values, even if it means going to court.
‘Some Byron Shire Councillors are maintaining that they have to vote with staff recommendations, whereas some are solid in their integrity to vote to protect Wallum from premature destruction,’ one of the leaders of the campaign, James Barrie said.
‘Where do we stand if this is what democracy in local government looks like, when decisions are made from within an institution that doesn’t consult adequately with the public they are hired to serve, and employs elected representatives – only some of who represent ‘the public interest’ faithfully?’
‘We’re concerned that Council Planning Staff are stating the plans have been assessed as compliant – those plans will bulldoze a significant part of the SEPP [State Environmental Planning Policy], which is a protected area under state legislation.’
But Mayor Michael Lyon (Independent) described Mr Barrie’s comments as ‘misleading in the extreme’.
‘The ‘Save Wallum” campaign has consistently painted this matter as if Council is the determining authority and that somehow approval of this development can be stopped by Council,’ Cr Lyon said.
‘The fact of it is, we are not the determining authority. Our only role, which is always performed by staff following an approval, in this case by the NRPP, is to ensure that the conditions of consent of that approval have been met at each stage as the development progresses. In no correspondence received to date has there been evidence or valid argument that the conditions of consent haven’t been met.’
Cr Lyon said that the plans provided by the development had been independently assessed as meeting requirements and that all councillors could legally do at Thursday’s meeting was to note this.
The Save Wallum campaign is calling on locals who want to save the site to show up in numbers to this Thursdays meeting, which will take place at the Council chambers in Mullumbimby at 11am.
At this week’s direct action in Lenox, a group of passionate locals gathered to convey their concerns about Clarence’s plans.
‘As Clarence Properties claims to be ‘ecologically and community minded’, how can they be
forging ahead with this high-end luxury housing and tourism development, at a huge cost to our very survival?’ one community member said.
‘There’s only nine glossies left in the Byron Shire, and five of them use Wallum frequently to survive,’ Mr Barrie said.
‘A development here literally threatens the species with extinction locally.’
Go to Echo.net.au on Thursday for updates on Council’s decision.
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